Afterthoughts.....

1.  It is possible to pack in just carry-on luggage!  We faced early Spring temperatures where we needed jackets and gloves, as well as Summer weather, but we still managed.  I actually had one light shirt that I never wore.  I could have actually done with one less pair of pants.

 Mark gives himself a B+ on his packing; he wished he'd had a lighter jacket of some sort as he went with a winter jacket.  And, he could have probably used another pair of pants.  (It didn't help that he left one pair in England when we took off for France!)

2.  Drawbacks to carry-on:  not being able to buy certain presents because of how much room they'd take and not being able to buy wine which has to be checked.  Hence, we did buy a roller bag just before we left France so that we could pack 3 bottles of wine.

3.  Variety is the spice of travel and we managed to design a variety-filled trip - cities, towns, villages, countryside.  Castles, museums, ancient ruins, beaches.  We stayed with friends/family, in rented apartments, a farmhouse, in timeshare, in castles and....on a boat.  We traveled on buses, trains, subways, cars, taxis, boats and airplanes.

4.  It is important to build in 'down time'.   You can oversaturate with sights.

5. Travel is great for your mind.

6. Keeping a blog is a good thing - it made us take photos, for example, for every day we traveled.  It  forced us to go some place and do something every day that would be worth writing about and/or photographing.

7. Finally, we learned that, even though we are now 60 (and 61), we can rough it and can negotiate in countries where we don't speak the language and we can figure out how the public transport works.  (In England, Oyster cards have to be tapped on the way in AND the way out, unlike Boston's Charlie cards.  In Paris, the subway doors do not always open for very long and you can get your luggage stuck on the other side from where your body is!

 Also, it is important to put the ticket in the right turnstile and not open the door for someone next to you instead of for yourself!)  We can still carry backpacks and suitcases up and down subways and we can manage to read maps and not get too lost. We do NOT need GPS.  (Although we do admit that it was great to have Maura's when we were in London.)